WASHINGTON: Public Knowledge, a public-interest lobby, is
asking the Federal Communications Commission to require commissioners and staff
negotiating for new employment to make those intentions public. The request was
prompted by the news that Republican Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker would
leave her post a month early to become a lobbyist for NBCUniversal. Baker voted
in favor of Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal and spoke out against imposing
conditions.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, PK President Gigi B. Sohn noted
that PK’s FCC Reform report last year noted the lack of transparency in
post-FCC employment. The letter also noted that officials recusing themselves
from dockets or issues because of employment negotiations had in the past been
required to file a publicly available letter with the recusal information. That
requirement has lapsed, and Public Knowledge said Genachowski should “immediately
reinstitute this requirement.”

“As you are no doubt aware, there has been a great deal of public discussion
surrounding the timing of the departure of Commissioner Meredith Baker,” Sohn
wrote. “Although all available evidence suggests that she and her staff are
adhering to current recusal procedures, those procedures have at least one
easily corrected deficiency. No one in the public, and probably few at the commission,
knew that she had talked with Comcast about possible future employment until
she announced her departure.”

There once was a public-disclosure requirement, but it has apparently lapsed.

“We suggest that you immediately reinstitute this requirement, which would
cover all commissioners and staff at the earliest possible stage of serious
employment negotiations,” Sohn said. “As we. . . noted in the report, ‘When
agency staff can move easily in and out of careers with companies the agency
regulates and the law firms that represent them, the problem of agency capture
is exacerbated.’”Print Page